Our annual picnic in celebration of the end of a very successful season, was itself a rousing success. Excellent company, superb food (including some of the best pulled pork and cole slaw ever) and temperatures in the steaming range combined to produce a "hot time in the old town that night". For more complete details you will need to find someone other than these three characters who neither saw nor heard anything and wouldn't tell you if they did!

February 28, 2010

Johann Sebastian Bach would be pleasantly surprised to find his music still admired – perhaps more today than ever.  He composed his cantata Ihr werdet weinen und Heulen (No. 103) as part of a long, steady stream of cantatas – more than a hundred – written during his first two years at Leipzig, from mid-1723 to mid-1725.  His job in Leipzig entailed producing and overseeing music in all the city’s churches for every Sunday (and other holy days) of the year.  Ihr werdet weinen und heulen was written for the Third Sunday after Easter – falling upon April 22 – in 1725.  While he himself reused the cantata from time to time over the next 25 years, doubtless he thought it would soon pass into oblivion with ever-changing times and tastes.

The text for the Third Sunday after Easter is Jesus’ farewell to his apostles, foretelling his own death and resurrection (beginning with John 16:16):

A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again a little while,
and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.  . . .  
Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice:
and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned to joy.

As usual, Bach relied on a skilled poet to write a libretto for his cantata based on the gospel text.  Often the librettist is anonymous, but in this case we know who it was:  a local poetess named Marianne von Ziegler, who lived from 1695 to 1760, published several volumes of poetry, was named a “poet laureate” of Wittenberg University, and played several musical instruments on the side.  Marianne von Ziegler wrote texts for a series of nine consecutive cantatas by Bach, starting with this one and ending with the First Sunday after Pentecost (Trinity Sunday), May 27, 1725.

In the present cantata Ziegler illustrates “weeping vs. rejoicing” with the analogy of “sickness vs. health.”  The first recitative and aria (movements 2-3) pursue the analogy of sickness.  Bach sets Ziegler’s aria text with the poignant tones of the flute and alto voice, in a pensive “siciliano” rhythm.  The second recitative and aria (movements 4-5) take up “health,” which Bach represents with the bright sounds of trumpet and full string section, together with the tenor voice, all set to a lively “bourrée” rhythm.  These wonderfully colorful solo numbers are framed by two choruses.  The opening chorus (movement 1) makes extraordinary use of the sopranino recorder – the highest member of the recorder family – to depict the “wailing and howling” of the gospel text with utmost brilliance.  The concluding chorale (movement 6) is a single verse of an old hymn, Barmherzger Vater, höchster Gott (Merciful Father, God most high), set to the tune of Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit (What my God will, so be it always), one of the greatest of the old Lutheran hymn melodies.

*    *    *

Marianna Martines (also styled Marianne von Martínez) was born in 1744 to a Spanish-Italian family who lived in high social standing in Vienna.  From childhood onward, Marianna counted among her friends some of Vienna’s finest musicians and artistic personages, including the composers Haydn and Mozart and the poet Metastasio.  She showed early talents as a singer and keyboard player.  At sixteen she took up composition, and within a year a complete mass written by her was sung at the Vienna court church.  By her late twenties she was widely known throughout Europe; the English music historian Charles Burney praised her works, as did the noted Italian theorist Padre Martini.  She never married but led a vivacious public life.  She kept a large household where she held musical soirées to entertain the best of Vienna’s society, even on occasion playing four-hand sonatas with Mozart himself.  Later in her career she ran a singing school that produced many notable operatic performers.

Martines’ compositions include numerous songs, keyboard pieces and church works.  The two songs heard today have Italian texts by Metastasio, and are written in the style of such contemporary Viennese opera composers as Hasse, Jommelli and Galuppi.  The music is perhaps less adventurous than Mozart’s, but is very much in keeping with the most refined taste and standards of the time.

*    *    *

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel was born in 1805 to a Berlin Jewish family of highest cultural distinction and artistic background.  She shared with her younger brother Felix Mendelssohn, born in 1809, a precocious talent and a voracious appetite for all things musical.  Though Felix was to overshadow Fanny in his later public life, in private the two siblings kept always in close touch; Felix owed much of his success to the unending inspiration and mentorship of his older sister.  Fanny’s early death in 1847 dealt a hard blow to Felix, who died himself only six months later.

Fanny’s own life was largely domestic and private, as befit a lady of the times.  She enjoyed a happy marriage to the artist Wilhelm Hensel with whom she maintained a lively household and raised a son (named Sebastian Ludwig Hensel in honor of Bach and Beethoven).  Their home was a mecca for musicians, artists, writers and philosophers from all over Europe.  They were widely renowned for their weekly Sunday afternoon musicales, bringing together the finest players and singers from Berlin, and attracting the cream of society within the audience, including such international luminaries as Liszt, Goethe and Robert and Clara Schumann.  Often these concerts highlighted great music of the past – especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach – as well as new works by Fanny, Felix and their contemporaries.

Fanny’s output encompasses some 466 works, including many volumes of songs, piano pieces and chamber works, as well as several weighty compositions for choral and orchestral forces.  In the cantata Hiob (Job) Fanny draws heavily upon the music of Bach, whose early cantatas – especially Aus der Tiefe (Out of the Depths, No. 131) – form a clear model.  Fanny’s mastery of Bach’s style of fugal writing, as shown in all three sections of Hiob, is second to none.  At the same time she embraces an adventurously modern harmonic idiom, modulating quickly to distant keys in the latest style of Schubert or Schumann.  Today’s musicians can learn much from Fanny – and we are just beginning to do so.

December, 2009

Every year, just after Thanksgiving, western society gives a nearly unison and enthusiastic, although somewhat unknowing, nod to the Renaissance. In addition to the scientific and artistic glories of the 14th, 15thand 16thcenturies, there were cultural changes, not the least of which involved the celebration of Christmas. Holiday feasting got a big kick off from King Richard II of England during the 14thcentury with a Christmas dinner that included the eating of some 28 oxen and 300 sheep. A tradition still adding to the modern waistline! Caroling, a form of expression that included song and dance, became popular during this time. Carols, likely originated by St. Francis in the 13thcentury, evolved from Latin plainsong and spread quickly. Caroling in celebration of the birth of Christ earned the title of “lewd sport” from a certain “Lady Morely” in a 1459 letter. The heathens! Christmas tree decorating began when Martin Luther first placed candles on the tree to “show his children how the stars twinkled through the night”. By mid century bakers were making shaped gingerbreads and wax ornaments specifically for decorating holiday trees. A 1601 visitor to Strasbourg wrote of a tree decorated with “wafers and golden sugar twists and paper flowers of all colors”. Silver tinsel, invented in 1610 Germany, soon became a part of the decorating ritual. St. Nicholas, whose feast-day is celebrated on Dec. 6th, had become widely popular by the mid 16thcentury. It should be noted that the very generous monk is the patron saint of children and pawnbrokers. Seems rather appropriate somehow.

In the history of western music, the Renaissance was a high point. Hundreds of composers, many now lost to history, contributed to a rapid development of the musical art. Tomas Luis de Victoria, who probably studied with Palestrina, Gabrieli who became the first widely renown composer of the “Venetian School”, William Byrd, a student of Thomas Tallis, and Hans Leo Hassler who was the first German-born composer to study in Italy provide today’s performance with music of the late Renaissance. Scarlatti gives us an example of the Baroque take on the motet form while Britten, Wickham, Walton and Kodaly all admit to inspiration by the music of the Renaissance masters in the creation of their works on this concert. The Piae Cantiones, published in 1582 is a collection of late Medieval Latin songs and provides the tunes for “Good King Wenceslas”and “Up! Good Christian Folk and Listen”. Although the source of the tune is lost to history, the first written record of the words of “I saw three ships” comes from 1666. The “Ding Dong Merrily on High”tune comes from “Orchésographie” a study of late-renaissance dances by French cleric Jehan Tabourot.

We are pleased to present this snapshot of Renaissance and Renaissance inspired music. May this musical offering deepen your celebration of the season.

Soli deo Gloria.

And a very merry Christmas and the very best in the New Year!

John Rutter is perhaps the best known and most prolific living composer. Although his works include music for orchestra and other instrumental ensembles, his choral works are the best known. In 2003 Rutter was featured in a 60 Minutes segment. During the interview he admitted that he is “not a particularly religious man” but that he is “deeply spiritual and inspired by the spirituality of sacred verses and prayers”.

And his work is proof of that inspiration. Rutter’s choral works include several dozen anthems and motets, the vast number of which use sacred texts and are intended for use during religious services. Included in his writings are several major works including ‘Requiem’.

Like Brahms and Faure before him, Rutter does not adhere strictly to the Catholic liturgical Requiem text but also includes some of the seven texts that appear in the 1662 Anglican Book of Common Prayer and are known collectively as “funeral sentences”. You can hear three of the “sentences” woven through the ‘Agnus Dei’ movement and the final movement, ‘Lux Aeterna’ which opens with a fourth text from the sentences. According to Rutter, “The seven sections of the work form an arch-like meditation on the themes of life and death: the first and last movements are prayers on behalf of all humanity, movements 2 and 6 are psalms, 3 and 5 are personal prayers to Christ, and the central Sanctus is an affirmation of divine glory.” These texts combined with Rutter’s gift for melody and orchestration have made his ‘Requiem’ a twentieth-century classic of choral literature.

One of Rutter’s earliest visits to the US was in 1974 at the invitation of Mr. Olson who’s ‘Mel Olson Chorale’ commissioned and premiered the major work ‘Gloria’. ‘A Gaelic Blessing’ was commissioned in 1978 by the Chancel Choir of the First United Methodist Church of Omaha, Nebraska in honor of minister of music Mel Olson.

Having studied music as an undergraduate at Clare College, he spent the last half of the 1970’s directing the choir there, leading them to international prominence. As a result of that and other early contributions to choral literature and practice, Rutter was made an honorary Fellow of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. The anthem ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’ was also written in 1980 for the Texas Choral Directors’ Association.

‘Musica Dei donum’ was written in 1998 using text from a musical setting Lassus published in 1594. The work was originally commissioned by Clare College Cambridge and was contributed by the composer for an album in honor of Linda McCartney who died from breast cancer in 1998. The composer contributed the work because “of its theme of the power of music, to uplift sad minds”.

‘Creation’s Alleluia’ was commissioned in 1989 in honor of Lowell Lacey, the music minister oat Second Congregational Church I Greenwich, Connecticut.

In 1981 Rutter founded his own choral group, the Cambridge Singers largely to record definitive versions of his own work. That same year he honored the memory of choral director and composer Edward T. Chapman with our closing work ‘The Lord Bless You and Keep You”.